CAD Aids Environmentally Sensitive Golf Course Design By Tom Barratt The development of an environmentally sensitive golf course in British Columbia had become a highly contentious issue in the resort town of Whistler, a 3-hour drive north of Seattle. This valley community, nestled in a coastal mountain range near Mount Garibaldi, has become one of the top ski destinations in North America. Yet, the community of Whistler perceived the Nicklaus North Golf Course as a threat to the bordering wetland, lake and forest. Negotiations between the developer and community representatives had come to an impasse. At that point, the developer made a commitment to maintain fifty percent of the golf course site as undeveloped vegetation; twenty-five percent of that would be completely preserved, and the remaining twenty-five percent would be revegetated. Landscape Architects Senga Lindsay and Tom Barratt were responsible for making sure the fifty-percent mark was maintained throughout the course development; as work progressed, the designers needed to immediately know the effect that any change in area would have on that mark. The tool for obtaining this "real time" calculation of the percentage area was MiniCAD, a 2D/3D CAD software package. The program's integrated spreadsheet kept track of land designations and area calculations on each section of the course. The spreadsheet could be called into the drawing, placed on it as a graphic, used as a scratch-pad calculator, or left in the drawing for specifications and accounting lists. Once the initial spreadsheet links were set up, the program updated the information as the drawing changed. The software automatically entered the link and the square footage of the group in the spreadsheet. In the MiniCAD system, layers correspond to the clear acetate layers of manual drafting. For ease of visualization, layers can be invisible or filled with gray, and each can have its own color, shading, filling or scale, and can be locked or active. Here, the team used the golf course plan as a reference layer, and imported the information from the various disciplines into the appropriate layers. The designer's plans for the fairways, greens, roughs, clubhouse and half-way house were digitized and imported into several layers; the environmental consultant's habitat surveys were imported; the civil engineer's road and drainage plans and siltation control measures were imported; the water management engineer's flood route and dike information were imported; and ground and aerial surveys were digitized and imported-- reaching a total of fifty layers! MiniCAD's snapping capability (which connects objects and shows alignment) helped ensure an accurate calculation of the shapes that comprised the various areas. Snapping is allowed between layers; to a specified grid at object points; at object intersections; at a specified distance; and at parallels, perpendiculars, and tangents. The project called for extensive replanting of 18,000 native trees, shrubs, and herbaceous plants-- 3,550 trees, 9,800 shrubs and 4,700 wetland plants. Plant suppliers were commissioned two years in advance to develop large quantities of the indigenous plant species. The daunting task of determining these quantities and the associated materials (such as peat), along with calculating the resulting costs, was easily handled. The database attached identifying information to an object as it was entered on the drawing; it then generated a bill of materials by associating a part number and description for every object. Later, as changes were made to the drawing, the database was automatically updated. When the development was finished, the project team had succeeded in bringing to life an overall landscape design that provided for ample restoration of the indigenous plant life. The community of Whistler was satisfied that as much of the natural resources were preserved as possible. The firm has since worked on a number of other golf course developments, and MiniCAD has played an important role in the development. The software?EUR??,,????'???s capability of grouping objects by class further helped to calculate the areas. The firm established abut 20 different classes of land designations, including fairway, secondary rough, treed natural rough, shrub natural rough, and herbaceous natural rough along the ponds.